In recognition of his contributions, the government of Bangladesh honoured him by appointing him the first National Professor from among physicians in 1984. He was awarded Swadhinata Padak (1979); Gold Medal by Begum Zebunnesa and Kazi Mahbubullah Trust (1981); Gold Medal by Mahbub Ali Khan Memorial Trust (1985); Gold Medal by Comilla Foundation, Comilla (1986); Gold Medal by Khan Bahadur Ahsanullah Memorial Trust, Ahsania Mission, Dhaka (1989); Gold Medal by Islamic Foundation Bangladesh (1989). He used to tell the patients: "We are grateful to you for giving us the opportunity to serve." His humility was legendary and most genuine. Deep empathy and compassion were characteristics of his dealing with his patients, especially those who were poor and in pain. He also motivated other doctors to serve the patients with empathy. -- Muhammad Abdul Mazid (Photo: Dr Mohammad Ibrahim)

The Arabic word mushrik in Islamic theology means 'one who associates a worldly object with Divine power'. If the Hindus are mushrik in this sense, so are we, the majority of Muslims in the subcontinent. They associate with God Almighty numerous idols put on pedestals and we, numerous saints of antiquity buried in their graves. They worship God through the medium of images seen as sublime symbols, we petition dead saints to intercede with God to grant us earthly and heavenly favours. If one way is shirk, so is the other. If despite all this Islam remains a "monotheistic" faith, so does Hinduism. --Tahir Mahmood (Translated from English by Samiur Rahman, NewAgeIslam.com)

People from different religious backgrounds living side by side have been a challenge in Egypt, as well as many places, for ages. In India, Europe and the US so-called multi faith spaces have had some success creating shared spaces where people can practice whichever belief they have together. “Multi faith spaces include spaces with a remarkable variety of names like room of silence, meditation room, prayer room, the hub, chapel and many others. This diversity of names is an indication of the differences in approach, purpose and usage,”…. “In India, Muslims as well as Hindus and Buddhists are very spiritual in their approach to religion. I think we see our religious identity more as who we are. We believe in one God and that our God is the only god,”….. understanding of their fellow citizens. “Sharing our prayer for God would be focusing on the one thing we don’t have in common. But just as Indians have things in common regardless of their religion, so do we. Let’s focus on that,” he says. “We have values in common, such as the respect for marriage, and we have shared problems, such as discrimination from public employment. Let’s gather around that.” -- Mette Eriksen

So, Qadri’s lawyers are presenting his act as sudden provocation, automatism in legal terms, meant as a defence by negating the existence of actus reus, the actual act of committing a crime. This is supplemented by referring to religion, religious teachings and the sanctity of the Prophet (PBUH) not just to ground the automatism plea but to appeal to the court’s own conscience and piety. Implied in this is also a veiled threat that some issues stand above and beyond the law and institutional hierarchy and must be treated on a touchstone other than that which placed Taseer in a position of authority. Ironically, this effect is to be achieved by referring to Taseer’s alleged conduct as violative of the blasphemy law and the inability — or unwillingness — of the state to proceed against him which, in this case, forced Qadri to act on his own. The inevitability of Taseer’s murder is argued by the defence as “if Qadri had not killed him, someone else would have”. -- Ejaz Haider

It is a long and winding journey to sacred places from the grave of Pir Muhammad Barkhudar Gilani Qadri, a Pakistani Sufi figure in Sillanwali, to Ulakan Syeikh Burhanuddin Mosque in Pariaman, West Sumatra, Indonesia. In those burial complexes, ordinary people experience the “conversion” of life. In this context, we see that Sufi figures are not stereotypic wandering men in self-ecstasy. Indonesian people can fairly say that men like pedagogic Ki Hadjar Dewantara who founded Taman Siswa College during the Dutch occupation, freedom fighters Tuanku Imam Bonjol, Prince Diponegoro and other Indonesian heroes and heroines and even non-Muslim independence fighters are Sufi. They did not hide in solitude but led their people to sovereignty. I assume in their ziyarat or long struggle, while waging guerilla war behind mountainous villages, men like Imam Bonjol or Diponegoro used many religious practices to maintain morale among their followers. They would have recited zikir or religious contemplative chants in circle pattern, performed muraqaba or meditation by using their own cultural musical instruments (sama) to achieve self-peace and self-conviction in their fight against the invaders. -- Abrar Haris

Three conclusions are obvious. First, the size of the population threatened by the wave of sectarian violence has increased by a wide margin. Secondly, the targeted groups are no longer threatened with loss of job or property; their right to life itself is denied. And, thirdly, the addition of minority-bashing to the Al Qaeda’s agenda has greatly enhanced the strength of the forces that are challenging the state of Pakistan in this regard. Discrimination including violence against communities that are non-Muslim by choice (Hindus, Christians, Sikhs et al) and those put in this bracket against their will (Ahmedis) has been on the increase for several years. That meant about five per cent of the population, or nine million people, were threatened. Even that was not a small number. The addition of the Shias to the people earmarked for extermination should raise the figure of endangered Pakistanis to 15 to 20 per cent of the population — 27 to 36 million people. Does it not put the need to combat sectarianism at the top of the national agenda? -- I.A Rehman

Last summer we witnessed one such a case. Ten days after September 11, 2001, Mark Stroman attacked three people he thought were Muslims (one of them was not), killing two of them. The third, an American Muslim of Bangladeshi background, Rais Bhuiyan, pretended to be dead and survived the attack. Stroman was arrested and eventually sentenced to death. He remained nearly ten years on death row; during these ten years his would-be victim, Rais, tried to save him, offering his forgiveness and requesting that the judiciary halt its infernal machinery and save him. Despite Rais’ personal commitment, Stroman was executed on July 21, 2011 in Texas. In those years, Mark Stroman had profoundly apologized and had become another man when he left this world. Rais Bhuiyan has become the true face of dignity and compassion and, indeed, the personification of how Islamic values and spirituality can transform an open heart. This is a far more profound and true example of what Islam stands for than the recent executions in Saudi Arabia by beheading of a so-called exorcist or in Iran by hanging a man from a crane (as happened few weeks ago). Both sentences were issued by opaque judicial systems where neither the accused nor her/his lawyer (assuming an accused even has the right to an independent lawyer) could defend themselves properly, only compounding the shame. -- Tariq Ramadan

What explains the change? The summer had passed peacefully. So did the Amarnath yatra. Most of the bunkers were dismantled. Tourists and pilgrims in unprecedented numbers had flocked to the state. Voter turnout in the panchayat elections was most impressive. The security forces had learnt to use non-lethal methods to control unruly crowds and initiated programmes to reach out to the people. All the same, peace in the Valley remains fragile. A single incident can spin everything out of control. The positive developments Kashmir has witnessed over the past 11 months cannot therefore be hailed as a trendsetter. Kashmiris, who have borne the brunt of the violence of the past two decades, seek a political settlement rooted in 'insaniyat' (humanity), 'insaf' (justice) and 'izzat' (honour). This is a perfectly legitimate demand. They must be persuaded that the national and state Constitutions are flexible enough to accommodate it.-- Dileep Padgaonkar

Islam does not Sponsor Violence in the Name of Establishing the Rule of Allah

By Jahangir Alam Qasmi, NewAgeIslam.com

The holy Quran also comes down heavily on those who misinterpret the teachings of Islam to justify the killings of innocent non-combatant non-Muslims including old men, children and women to further the political ambitions of a coterie of misguided Muslims. They unleash bloodshed and mayhem and think that they are reformers purifying the world of sins and sinners. See what the Quran says about these men: And when it is said to them: "Make not mischief on the earth," they say: "We are only peacemakers." (Al Baqra: 11) And so advises this misguided lot in the following words: "Eat and drink of that which Allah has provided and do not act corruptly, making mischief on the earth."(Al Baqra: 60) --Jahangir Alam Qasmi (Translated from English by-Samiur Rahman, NewAgeIslam.com)

“There is a lot of brain drain here, that’s part of why I came back. I didn’t want to be a brain drainer. I wanted to fix it.” Halifa is a 25 year-old Maldivian woman, educated and living abroad, who returned to work in the Maldives for a one year contract in a highly specialised professional field. For many young people, Halifa says, Maldivian culture is an obstacle to growth and employment. “Many youth wish they weren’t even Maldivian, they don’t know why they had to get stuck here,” she says. “When I talk to one of my friends, she says she wants to get out and come back when it’s better. That attitude is actually quite common.” Although Maldivian law and society allow for equal rights between genders, speaking out is considered brash and unfeminine, and the cultural mindset of wearing the burqa means more girls are being married young without finishing their education. One woman called this shift in behavior “brain wastage: a deliberate refusal to apply the brains that one has – and this is the biggest problem that Maldivian women face today.” --Eleanor Johnstone

Nothing is lost yet, so they better act now before they are returned to God. When they are returned to Him: “On that Day We shall deliver a mighty onslaught,” when the smoke envelops people. “We will indeed exact retribution,” for the play you indulge in and the falsehood you level at the Prophet describing him as ‘taught by others, a madman’, when he is God’s trusted Messenger. when God sends a messenger to a certain community, this may represent a special test for them. Likewise, allowing those who oppose the messenger and reject his message a period of time during which they may persist in their arrogance, persecuting the messenger and those who believe in him, may also be a special sort of test. When a community exhausts the patience of God’s messenger, leaving him despairing of their ever being positive towards the divine message, their action may incur a stern punishment: “We did, before their time, try Pharaoh’s people.” We tested them with prosperity and power in the land, as well as all means of affluence and power. “There came to them a noble messenger.” -- The Daily Arab News

But as most of them were highly militant and eventually got themselves ‘strategically’ linked with certain sections of the radicalised military institutions, it were the evangelical movements that managed to reap the most success within the country’s chaotic and uncertain social and cultural milieu. The largest of them was also the oldest. The ranks of the Tableeghi Jamat (TJ), a highly ritualistic Deobandi Islamic evangelical movement, swelled. But since the TJ was more a collection of working-class and petty-bourgeoisie cohorts and fellow travelers, newer evangelical outfits emerged with the idea of almost exclusively catering to the growing ‘born again’ trend being witnessed in the county’s middle and upper-middle classes in the 1990s. Three of the most prominent organisations in this context were Farhat Hashmi’s Al-Huda, Zakir Naik’s ‘Islamic Research Foundation’ and Babar R. Chaudhry’s Arrahman Araheem (AA). -- Nadeem F. Paracha

Today should be Mahmoud Abbas's finest hour. Even The New York Times has discovered that "a grey man of grey suits and sensible shoes, may be slowly emerging from his shadow". As usual, Hanan Ashrawi, the only eloquent Palestinian voice in New York this week, got it right. "I couldn't believe what I heard," she told Haaretz, that finest of Israeli newspapers. "It sounded as though the Palestinians were the ones occupying Israel. There wasn't one word of empathy for the Palestinians. He spoke only of the Israelis' troubles..." Too true. And as usual, the sanest Israeli journalists, in their outspoken condemnation of Obama, proved that the princes of American journalists were cowards. "The limp, unimaginative speech that US President Barack Obama delivered at the United Nations... reflects how helpless the American President is in the face of Middle East realities," Yael Sternhell wrote. -- Robert Fisk

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Urdu Section

28 Sep 2011, NewAgeIslam.Com

Importance of Observation in the Quran

By Sohail Arshad, NewAgeIslam.com

The Quran reminds man time and again that the master and the creator of the universe is God. He is omnipotent and all powerful. He has no rival or colleague. His knowledge covers everything. He knows each and every particle in the universe and the universe is illuminated with his light. He created the universe for man and illuminated the sun and the moon, spread the greenery on the earth, grew countless bounties for man and gave him supremacy over all the creatures on earth so that he can use them for his own benefit. He created rivers and streams for him and hid gems in them. The Quran expects man to think over all this and seek spiritual proximity to God. --Sohail Arshad, NewAgeIslam.com